


Rebirth

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Prompt Fics [82]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coma, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25366102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Finn wakes up from her coma only to find that she's alone.
Relationships: Julie "Finn" Finlay/Nick Stokes
Series: Prompt Fics [82]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540795
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Rebirth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jencsi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencsi/gifts).



> for jen, who sent the prompt "You weren’t there…why weren’t you there?” for Nick and Finn!

The best part of waking up from a never ending void of consciousness is that in itself; waking up. The rediscovery of a life that she thought—or rather, didn’t think, _couldn’t_ think—was over, brought back with a single gasping breath out of the senseless bog that had hidden her light for a length of time that she still isn’t certain of.

And really, she isn’t even certain she wants to know that anyway. She doesn’t want to know how many seconds we’re shaved off from her life, thrown in a waste bin with the other times she had fallen unconscious.

She doesn’t want to know the minutes spent by the medical staff tending to her physical body. She selfishly shudders to even consider the possibility they didn’t give her all the appropriate care she deserved. She hopes she wasn’t a burden to them. Or her family, for that matter.

She doesn’t want to know how many hours her loved ones spent waiting. Watching. Sitting. Taking time out of their hearts, their lives to make sure her’s was still going.

She hopes they’ll be happy to find out that she won her fight.

If they still care, that is. Or if they simply had moved on.

Because the worst part of waking up...was waking up _alone._

Her mind woke up before her body did, which made everything somehow worse. Trapped in a stiff body, at first she was fooled into thinking she was settling into rigor mortis. The dim lights, the cool air and absence of sound made her feel like she was in the morgue until her ears popped and she was flooded with the white noise of the hospital, triggered by the flip of a light switch as a nurse came to her side.

“Welcome back, Ms. Finlay! I’ll let your family know you’re awake just as soon as we’re doing here.”

She wants to tell the nurse that yes, she wants to see her family, but more than anything she wants to see _him._

She can’t even remember their last moments together. The last words they spoke. The shirt he was wearing. She vaguely remembers shaving his beard in an act of intimacy in a shared bathtub...but also seems to remember him shaving everything off altogether, a clean slate.

Is that what their relationship will be, when he finally arrives?

It’s not for two grueling days spent with her fighting with her own body to just get up. Walk around. Do _something_. Say _something_.

She supposed she’s partially grateful for that. That he didn’t have to see her as a mute, broken marionette who can’t seem to do anything but bar her eyelashes and cry as more and more visitors come to spectate her rebirth.

If there ever was a situation that called for the exact opposite of a funeral, this is it.

Oddly enough, he comes running into the room dressed like he’s attending one. Black suit and tie. Clean shaven head. Dried tear streaks offset by the lines on his face—more lines than she remembers. Reddened, puffy eyes—the sight of which is contagious to her, the tears are back and she almost rolls her eyes, she had just finished crying and she doesn’t want that headache again.

“Hey,” he chokes out as he settles on the edge of a chair, inching as close as he can to the bed and immediately grabbing her hand. “I came as soon as I could.”

“You weren’t there...” she croaks out, her vocal chords are still ripped and rasped. The sound of her voice seems to put a bullet into his chest as he ducks his head to examine it, before meeting her gaze once more with dueling streams of tears sliding down his face.

Any other day, she’d crumble with him. But her heart is still broken, the strings are still detached. And her anger is valid, she needs an explanation.

“Why weren’t you there?” she asks in a more firm, but still unsteady voice. She studies the hand that holds her. There’s a ring she hasn’t seen before, but it’s not like his other ones. This ones more simple. A golden band, decorated with stones.

“I know, I-I’m sorry,” he stammers. His tongue flicks out, before he moved towards her to plant a wet apology kiss.

She pulls away.

“Where have you been?”

He studies her, his face tightens. His eyes seem to darken deeper, the lines on his face deepen.

To eyes so young in rejuvenation, Nick Stokes has never seemed so _old._

“San Diego,” his voice, barely a whisper, laced with the one emotion she resonates with in this moment: regret.

“Are you...happy? There?”

“Not without you,” he hisses. His grip tightens. She nods towards the ring.

“Who is she?”

His face falls, his eyes widen and a new emotion shines within them, something she’s surprised to see in the fearless man who suddenly seems very afraid, rightfully so, to deliver the news that she knows is going to make her wish she had never woken up.

But to her surprise, his lips pull into a gentle smile.

He lifts up her hand, which she finds decorated with the same exact ring. He presses his lips to her hand, bestowing a kiss that shudders through her entire body giving her a new wave of life.

“You.”


End file.
